Le Mot D'avril
by Vivi007Nee
Summary: The Month Of April. Nami's on her way home; Nojiko reflects. Songfic.


**I couldn't tell you**

**Why she felt that way,**

Nojiko, age fifteen, stared blankly out the window of her small home in Cocoyashi village, to see her foster sister staggering at a snail's pace towards her. The same, emotionless mask covered her features, just as it had for the past several years.

**She felt it every day**

**And I couldn't help her.**

She loathed Arlong as much as her sister did, but was powerless towards the merman...The best she could do was get up, trudge towards the stove, and offer up a hot meal and a good night's rest to her despondent sibling.

**I just watched her make the same mistakes again**

Nami knew she couldn't end his reign of terror, but that didn't keep her from trying. Poisoning, ambushes, she had tried it all. And every time, Arlong would lash back at her body and spirit. Nojiko recoiled at the memory of Nami running home in tears, the first month she was gone.

"_NOJIKO!" little Nami shrieked, bursting into the door. She ran to her sister and latched onto her, splattering drops of blood everywhere in the process._

"_Nojiko..." she whispered, her eyes closing tightly with tears streaming down her frighteningly pale cheeks, "Nojiko...he hurt me..." Nojiko jumped as Nami was wrenched from her grasp by her hair, causing her to let out a sharp cry of pain. Arlong himself stood in the middle of the room, now holding a clump of howling Nami's hair, holding her to face his jagged nose. _

"_I TOLD you. You can't come running back here until the end of the MONTH." With that, he backhanded her across the face and proceeded to drag her back to Arlong Park. Nojiko was too horrified to do anything but sit back, soaked in her sister's blood. All of the villagers' doors and shutters were tightly sealed by now, they were too wrapped up in their own fear to notice the shrieking eight-year old being dragged down the dirt road...straight into Hell._

**What's wrong, what's wrong, now?**

**Too many, too many problems**

"_Bellemère died that same month_..." Nojiko reflected as she put a wok on the lit burner in front of her. _"That was Arlong's fault, too..." _she thought without emotion. Emotions hurt, she decided, and gave a wry laugh. _"I'm becoming my sister..."_

**Don't know where she belongs**

**Where she belongs...**

**She wants to go home, nobody's home,**

Genzo had stayed at Nojiko's house for a few weeks after Bellemère was killed, to financially support Nojiko and help her to cope. Nami saw him there once, and then he was gone to his own house again. Then it was just Nami and Nojiko again. The two of them were no less lonely.

**It's where she lies,**

She'd come home for a night, sleep, then leave. Although it was obvious that sleep was hard to come by for Nami at Arlong Park, she was restless in her own cottage as well. Often, she woke in the wee hours in the morning, usually to walk unsteadily to the bathroom and puke her guts out.

**Broken inside.**

**No place to go, no place to go, to dry her eyes**

She hadn't seen Nami laugh, scream, or even cry since Arlong had first seized her. Her eyes no longer held emotion, but they had a constant glaze of tears over them.

**Broken inside...**

**Open your eyes.**

**And look outside, find the reasons why.**

Nojiko unconsciously chopped vegetables into the sizzling wok. Nami often spent her time gazing out the window while visiting her old home, as if entranced by the ghost town that surrounded her.

**You've been rejected.**

For all she knew, Nami could truly believe the pretense that all of the villagers hated her. They had truly had to work hard, pretending to be disgusted with her for allegedly betraying her own town. Pretending not to know the nobility, the selflessness of Nami's suffering. Bellemère had raised her well. Nojiko gave a sad smile at this, and added soy sauce to the mixture.

**And now you can't find what you've left behind**

Nojiko glanced around the room seeing the few the poorly-made toys that Bellemère could afford to provide. She froze at the sight of a familiar dress, sporting a sunflower/lion in the middle. She quickly gathered a knife and tangerine from her basket and sprinted back into what was designated as the 'kitchen'.

**Be strong, be strong, now...**

"_Such strength..."_ she thought of her sister, now almost home, as she carefully peeled the citrus.

**Too many, too many problems**

"_...such courage..."_ tears welled up in Nojiko's eyes.

**Don't know where she belongs...where she belongs...**

"_...such hurt..."_ salt water fogged her vision, her hand slipped, and she sliced a large wound on her calloused palm.

**She wants to go home, nobody's home; **

**It's where she lies, broken inside**

**No place to go, no place to go...**

**To dry her eyes, broken inside...**

Instead of cursing and bandaging the cut as she usually would have done, she curled into a ball on the floor, and wept bitterly.

**And her feelings she hides,**

"Bellemère wouldn't have wanted this!" She rocked back and forth on her heels, head in hands, and shrieking at no one in particular.

**Her dreams she can't find,**

She screamed louder now, yanking wildly at her hair. "What happened to your world map! You promised! You PROMISED!"

**She's losing her mind,**

**She's fallin' behind**

When her hysterical sobbing receded, she sat up and took a deep breath, tears still streaming down her tanned cheeks. Her eyes flew open as she heard a thudding some distance away. Fearing the worst, she scrambled out the door.

**And she can't find her place,**

Nojiko flew between the two sections of tangerine groves that surrounded her house, and immediately spotted her foster sister.

**She's losin' her faith**

**She's fallen from grace,**

**She's all over the place...yeah...**

Nami was sprawled out on the ground, completely still aside from the steady rise and fall of her chest, indicating that she was breathing.

**Oh...she wants to go home, nobody's home,**

The open door of the empty house clattered loudly against the door jamb and swung back open from the sheer force with which Nojiko had shoved it open.

**It's where she lies, broken inside.**

Nojiko ran to where she lay, quickly checking her vitals. She dared not let out a sigh of relief at finding her sister completely healthy. No, something was wrong here.

**No place to go, no place to go...**

**To dry her eyes,**

Nojiko's eyes sprung forth new tears as she gazed into Nami's. Her friend, her partner...her sister...

**Broken inside...**

Nojiko immediately shook with anguish not at what she saw in her sister's eyes, but what she didn't. She didn't see anything...nothing. Her sister had nothing. No soul, no spirit. Her beloved sister had been broken by her captor.

**She's lost inside, lost inside...**

She shrieked at Nami to wake up, snap out of it, laugh, scream, cry, do anything that would prove her wrong. Because of Arlong, she had lost her village. She'd lost her true parents, and her foster mother. Now...

**Oh, oh...yeah...**

**She's lost inside, lost inside...**

She'd lost her sister.

She threw back her head and screamed, cried at the heavens, pleading, scolding, grieving. She settled to shrill sobs of anguish, looking back one last time at the emotionally dead face of the last of her family. Nami's eyes slid closed, then opened slowly yet again, revealing lifeless and defeated russet orbs, glazed with the same familiar tears that had given up on being shed. Nojiko leaned down and put her forehead to her sister's and shut her eyes tightly, wishing to wake up from what must be an awful nightmare. The last word she could manage before succumbing totally to the darkness she'd been fighting for years fully consumed her was a shaky:

**Oh, oh...**

"_No..."_

**Yeah...**

**A/N: ...whoa. Depressing. I love writing these miserable fanfics; they make me feel so great about my own life. **

**ALSO! Apparently, it isn't obvious to some people: ME NO OWN! One Piece and all its amazing characters belong to Eiichiro Oda, and the lyrics in bold belong to Avril Lavigne. ALSO ALSO! I tried to end it that way, because she said no, and the song said yeah, and Iunno. It seemed pretty cool to me. A lot of this fic relies heavily on the emotion of the song, for example, when Nojiko started to get hysterical, Avril sorta picked up and started yelling and stuff, so ja. Anywho, I'm uber-happy that you actually took time to read this awful thing, I just love this song so much, and after paying attention to the lyrics, I decided they were totally MADE for Nami. I realize it could be way better, but this is the best I can do right now, my mother wants cheerleading to consume my life until this huge competition is over...(sighs) Whatever. (Smiles) Thankies for reading! Reviews make my day, flames make me cry!**

**Love,**

**Sanji's**

**Tori-Tori-chan**


End file.
